Amuse bouche... Caffeine Fix

‘What’s in the jug?” said George.

“Don’t drink it!” said Ellen.

“That’s nice,” said George. “You assume that if I see a jug of something unidentified, I’d drink it.”

“Well, you know, desperate times,” said Ellen.

“I’m not that desperate yet,” said George.

Ellen poured the jug of pale pink liquid down the sink. She was descaling the coffee machine.

“Do you actually do that? You descale it,” said George. “Like, all the time.”

“Not all the time,” said Ellen. “Just from time to time. It tells you when it needs to be done. You’re not normally here when it happens.”

“Looks like a bit of pain,” said George.

“Not really,” said Ellen, “but thank you for the commentary.”

Ellen felt that this descaling had rushed up on her. She was sure she had descaled it that long ago and here the machine was again, flashing at her and saying: “Descale me. No one else will. They’ll ignore my blinking lights for as long as they can, before ultimately running to you whinging that I’m misbehaving and then you’ll have to do it anyway.”

The coffee machine was good, but it wasn’t that good. It couldn’t speak. That was just the sour voice in Ellen’s head, which was taking quite a hold and not helping the home situation. That said, George’s growing habit of asking about all the jobs around the place and commenting on how they were done, and how they had always been done, mostly by Ellen, wasn’t helping.

There was another thing not helping, of course.

It was 10am and Ellen had drunk three coffees already.

A month ago, her habit had been one in the morning and then maybe one later, sometimes out, sometimes at home, after her lunch but before picking up the kids. That was a nice habit, she thought, longing for a return to it.

No one was making her drink all this coffee, and Ellen liked to think she could stop whenever she wanted, but had made no real efforts to scale back.

These days, Ellen felt that nothing would get done without a couple of extra caffeine jolts in the morning — oh and that one in the afternoon that was not helping with sleeping.

The sleeping at night, however, was being helped by two glasses of red before bed. Ellen blamed George. He was too fond of a nightly drink lately, and she was just keeping him company, right?

They were like a pair managing their uppers and downers, Ellen thought.

Maybe the coffee machine wasn’t flashing to be descaled, maybe it was telling her to stop.